Currently in the oil in gas industry a large emphasis has been put on the development of unconventional and “tight” reservoirs. This includes shale gas and oil, low permeability rock and coal bed methane. For the development of these reservoirs large hydraulic fracturing operations (also called fracing, fraccing or fracking) have been undertaken in conjunction with long horizontally drilled wellbores. The process of fracturing commonly is completed using large quantities of fracturing fluid, typically ranging from hundreds to tens of thousand of cubic meters of produced and fresh water.
The handling and logistics of dealing with these large amounts of fracturing fluids has led to the development of specialized equipment and processes. The most common approach initially was to haul in large 400 barrel (400 bbl) tank farms as shown in FIG. 1a; each tank typically having a volume of approximately 63 m3. Such tank farms have ranged from ten to upwards of a hundred 400 bbl-sized tanks to facilitate required volumes of fracturing fluid.
Major disadvantages of this type of set up include large spatial foot print required, dependency on 400 bbl tank availability, large mobilization requirements, high mobilization/demobilization costs, high rental costs, tank cleaning costs, labour intensive hosing/manifold system required to tie all the 400 bbl tanks together, high water heating cost and high heat loss due to high surface-area-to-volume ratio of multiple 400 bbl tanks, and high rig matting requirements. A further disadvantage of such hosing/manifold system is that such system is subject to freezing during winter operations.
Other systems have been developed in an attempt to remove some of the disadvantages of the multiple 400 bbl tanks approach. One such system is to store large quantities of fracturing fluid in earthen lined or unlined pits and then transferring the fluid to a tank farm having a much smaller number of 400 bbl tanks, than the traditional set up. In this set up or system, the smaller number of 400 bbl tanks act as “buffer tank” so that fluid can be withdrawn at an equivalent rate to that required for the hydraulic fracturing operations. This method has benefits over the larger tank farms including smaller foot print, less heat loss. However, it requires large amounts of dirt work for the earthen pits and companies must abide by various environmental guide lines. This system also has some of the disadvantages as associated with larger tank farm set ups, including still requiring elaborate filling and suction manifold systems, as well as a need for high rate transfer pumping and piping system.
In recent years another method of fluid handling is the use of an above ground containment system (instead of earthen pits) along with the same smaller “buffer tank” system as used with the earthen pit system. This avoids the disadvantage associated with dirt work associated with the earthen pits. Such above ground containment system come in a variety of designs. Initially the primary design was a large corrugated sheet metal ring put up in sections of normally 4 ft×8 ft. These rings are then lined with a poly liner and used for fluid storage as shown in FIGS. 1b and 1c. These rings are, for the most part, an off shoot from secondary containment systems built by the Westeel Division of Vicwest Corporation headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Although very economical to purchase, such corrugated sheet metal rings proved to be very labour intensive to assemble, requiring multiple fasteners (usually nuts and bolts) which are passed through the overlapping corrugated sheet metal sections (from inside to outside; or vice-versa) and then are fastened. Such fastening (from inside to outside; or vice versa) also usually requires at least two labourers or workmen to complete the job (because it is difficult or impossible for a single person to reach around individual 4′×8′ sections to fasten), with one positioned inside the ring's interior and a second positioned outside the ring, both labourers or workmen then having to coordinate their fastening effort. Disassembly of such corrugated steel metal rings provides similar disadvantages.
To overcome the labour intensive assembly and disassembly of the currogated sheet metal containment rings, Poseidon Concepts Corp. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada has developed a containment ring system comprised of large panels (12 foot×24 foot) which is much quicker to set up due to their large panels (12′×24′ vs 4′×8′) and the use of a bolt-free connection system which utilizes a series of linking plates on the container's exterior (outside) surface only, as shown in FIG. 1d. However, these large panels are transported in a flat or horizontal arrangement (such as to avoid highway restrictions on load height). Moreover, large assembly equipment, such as picker trucks and track hoes are required to move and manipulate these large and heavy panels (such as between horizontal storage/transportation arrangement and the generally upright/vertical operational arrangement. This then also requires the use of qualified and certified equipment operators, all of which adds to the costs.
What is needed is a fluid handling and containment system which does not have the above-mentioned disadvantages.